Everywhere I look, I see the concrete jungle
full of people jostling one another,
the towers stretching high, the space between
packed with colourful cars speeding along the roads.
In vain, I try to find the trees of my childhood
only to spot a plant here and there—the
remnants of the once widespread forest—
the shrubs lined in the middle of the road
more tamed than the traffic around. Continue reading The Vanishing Wilds→

Like this:

Once upon a time, chariots were an everyday occurrence in the city of Hampi. They sped along the street, leaving the passersby awestruck with their splendor. Now, at the end of the city stands the solitary stone chariot in an empty temple campus.

Lifeless, yet elegant.

Inside the Vitthala Temple complex stands the magnificent stone sculpture in the shape of a chariot. The stone chariot is one of the most featured attractions of Hampi. It was built in the sixteenth century under the reign of Emperor Krishnadevraya, when Vijaynagar was at the height of its glory.

The chariot is not a monolithic structure, but made of connecting slabs of stones, the connection cleverly embedded in the artistic designs. Though now empty, the Stone Chariot was once a Garuda shrine.

Like this:

Last week I met a guy. He asked me if I ever had my heart-broken. I said no. Then, he hinted it’s alright if that’s the case. He even used astrology (my palm lines) to prove that I was nursing a broken heart from the past.

Now, I was perplexed. I have never been through a heartbreak. I’m a happy-go-lucky girl. Not the weepy, depressed kind. Why would anyone think that I was hiding a heartache?

The mystery remained till I checked my last post—the beating heart complete with a haiku on heartbreak. And that’s why I don’t share blog links with my acquaintances.

Well, to give the guy his due, he had asked me before why I haven’t written any posts last few months. My answer: “I wasn’t in the mood. I just don’t want to talk about it.” So I can understand if he thought no writing equals to depressed. The truth is I was being dramatic. I didn’t write because I was busy with clinic and other stuff related to dentistry.

To come back to my point, my writing is not all about me. I’m a fiction writer. We fiction writers have very high imagination and empathy. If I watch an episode of saas-bahu, I can write a whole story about the tortures of a daughter-in-law. If I talk to my pregnant friend, I can write about the troubles of pregnancy without ever becoming pregnant. A child misbehaving in a supermarket—a parenting article is born.

My fiction, and even non-fiction articles are not about my life. They are about people I encounter in my life. So, if I met you somewhere my story might be about you, but not me. Unless I specifically write that the post is about me, it is never me.

But people assume that my writing is me. That, I have gone through everything which they find in my writings. Most of the time, this confuses me because I have no idea what they’re talking about, and sometimes, it irritates me.

Fiction is just fiction. It’s a fantasy about how I wish the world was, or how I perceive the world. It’s to entertain you, to make you think, to make you feel better. The poem, stories are not real. Even the non-fiction (unless autobiographical) is my opinion about the world, not about my life.

We writers are great people to know. We’re as much fun as our writings. If you assume that our writings are us, then you’re losing out on knowing a wonderful person, because you assume you already know everything about us.

Have you recently met a fiction writer? Beware, you might appear in their story with all your traits, and a completely different life/scenario 😉 And you should be happy if it happens. Interesting people fire our imagination, the rest are forgotten.